Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/253

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60. Ships of the country: Sangara.—The first were, no doubt, the craft made of hollowed logs with plank sides and outriggers, such as are still used in South India and Ceylon (pictured on p. 212); the larger type, sangara, were probably made of two such canoes joined together by a deck-platform admitting of a- fair-sized deck-house. Dr. Taylor (Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Jan., 1847, pp. 1-78), says that the name jang@r is still used on the Malabar coast for these double canoes. Caldwell gives the forms changadam in Malayalam; janga/a in Tulu; and samghadam in Sanscrit, “‘a raft.”” Benfey (art. on /ndia in Ersch & Gruber’s Encyklopadie, 307) derives it from the Sanscrit sangara, meaning “‘trade;’’ Lassen, how- ever (II, 543), doubts the application of the word to shipping, and — Heeren (Jdeen tiber die Politik, etc., I, iii, 361) ascribes the word to a Malay original. This is quite possible, as the type itself is Malay, and found throughout the archipelago.

Modern double canoe with deck-structure, of the samgara type; in general use in South India, Ceylon, and the Eastern Archipelago.

The comparatively large size of the shipping on the Coromandel coast is indicated also by the Andhra coinage, on which a frequent symbol is a ship with two masts, apparently of considerable tonnage.

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